House unanimously revives teacher pay raise, PERS changes

• The Mississippi House is sending a strong message to the Senate, backing a $5,000 teacher pay raise and reducing the years of service necessary to draw benefits in PERS under the new Tier 5.

Led by Speaker Jason White (R), Mississippi House Republicans met early Friday morning in an effort to gain support to revive a variety of education reforms, including teacher pay raises and changes to PERS Tier 5 for all state employees.

“In the last couple of weeks, we have attempted to work with the Senate in making certain that we had a teacher pay increase for our teachers, as well as some of these PERS fixes, and the other things that are included in this bill,” House Education Committee Chairman State Rep. Rob Roberson (R) told Magnolia Tribune early Friday morning. “These are very important things that need to be done this year.”

Roberson said “for whatever reason, we weren’t able to achieve it in the regular bill process.”

“We’re bringing this bill out as one last chance to give us the opportunity to fix these things. Regardless of whether or not there is a blame game going on up here,” Roberson said. “That’s not why people send us to Jackson, they send us here to get this work done.”

Roberson presented the proposal Friday morning.

With limited debate, the House unanimously passed a strike-all amendment to SB 2103 that inserts the language necessary to revive the education reforms House Republicans are supporting without any reference to school choice or portability or education savings accounts (ESAs) as was proposed under HB 2 which died in the Senate. The original Senate bill dealt with deleting the requirement of school counselors to abide by the American School Counselor Association Code of Ethics.

The House is again proposing a $5,000 teacher pay raise along with an additional $3,000 annual salary increase for special education teachers. The measure also includes a $3,000 pay raise for assistant teachers, which Roberson said was not enough but a first step. The cost to state would be approximately $280 million.

The Senate had proposed a $2,000 teacher pay raise but it died in the House as members in that chamber were determined to see a higher wage increase.

A 45-day payroll fix to ensure teachers are paid regularly throughout the year is also included in the measure.

“In other words, in December, a lot of these teachers were not getting paid,” Roberson described.

Other provisions the House is proposing in the amended bill include capping district superintendent salaries at 250% of a teacher’s salary with similar credentials and training. It also adjusts the student funding formula to bring the base student cost to $7481.68 starting in the 2026-2027 school year. 

Under the bill, school attendance officers would be known as Student Success and Graduation Coaches. Their duties would expand to mentoring families and coordinating support services and raise their pay over $5,000. Along with that change, the Office of Drop Out Prevention would be changed to the Office of Student Success and Graduation and the Office of Compulsory School Attendance Enforcement would be renamed the Office of Educational Participation.

The House proposal would require school districts to form intervention strategies, family engagement protocols and local tailored attendance policies. It amends alternative school placement provisions to include referrals from youth courts to strengthen individualized assessments and transition planning while enhancing accountability of reporting through alternative education programs.

To ensure districts are performing as they should, the House bill also establishes temporary performance conditions for supplement funding with the Mississippi Department of Education, known as district improvement and teacher stabilization programs, for districts that fall in the D and F rankings under the state accountability system.

As for the state Public Employees Retirement System, PERS length of service would be adjusted, allowing first responders to retire at 25 years and all other state employees to retire at 30 years, down from the new Tier 5 mandate of 35 years which took effect March 1. State employees could retire at age 60 regardless of years worked under the changes. It also moves the PERS calculation back to the high four years instead of the high eight years.

Retired teachers could also return to the classroom.

“They won’t get the benefit, but they will have to pay into the PERS system,” Roberson added.

Speaker White held a press conference soon after the House gaveled out for the day. He called the House measure “a pro-education bill” and noted that the proposal adjusts the measures insisted upon by the Senate regarding PERS last session which led to the new Tier 5 requirements.

“It seems like this year the Senate has put a stake in the ground that they won’t even consider House legislation that they alone deem too complex,” White said. “We heard their complaints that we packed too much into a single bill. I will remind you just last year, the House Education Committee and the House as a whole sent six education bills, each singly defined, single topics. Not one was considered by the Senate Education Committee.”

White said he has a hard buying into the excuse that the House has sent the Senate “too complicated” education bills.

“A year ago, we made it real simple and couldn’t get any traction or debate and the [this year] the results are the same,” White said. “It is time for the ‘deliberative body’ to do just that, deliberate.”

Speaker White added that educators and those concerned about PERS should call their Senator and Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann (R) and urge them to act on SB 2103 as amended by the House.

“It is time for no more fancy letters from the Lt. Governor designed to wordsmith and mislead on the issue. It is time for somebody, anybody in the state Senate to stand up and lead on real issues, and quit hiding behind legislative deadlines and complexities and all these other things,” White said.

White was referring to a letter Hosemann sent to The Parents Campaign, an organization widely known to be largely against Republican-backed education reforms over the years but yet has maintained a strong lobbying presence at the state Capitol, particularly in the Senate, even as Republicans control both chambers and all eight statewide offices.

Hosemann’s letter to The Parents Campaign in the wake of Senate education bills dying in the House earlier this week has drawn criticism from conservatives across the state who view the organization with disdain.

Hosemann’s letter was addressed The Parents Campaign director and chief lobbyist Nancy Loome and shared by the organization on their social media platforms. The letter expressed Hosemann’s disappointment with the House and pointed to the Senate wanting to consider “separate, standalone legislation.”

You can review Hosemann’s letter below.